Adapted Video Game Controller Finds Kickstarter Success

Adapted video game controllers are nothing new. We’ve seen several offered by an array of companies since the 1980s — Broadened Horizon’s adapted controllers and Quasimoto’s adapted controllers just to name a few. But there’s a new video controller in town and it’s aiming to be the quickest, most precise controller yet for quads.

Dubbed the QuadStick, this hands-free video game controller is intended for high-quads, but anyone with limited dexterity will love this thing. It is essentially a joystick armed with multiple sip ‘n puff mechanisms to activate all of the controller’s buttons, and if you’re at all familiar with a typical PS3 controller, you know there are a lot of buttons to control.

The original design of the QuadStick was taken from a previous design by Ken Yankelevitz, a quad who created the Quad Control Joystick in the 1980s, but Ken can no longer take orders. And this updated version is much more versatile, allowing people with mobility restrictions to use it on everything from a game pad, mouse and keyboard on PC, PS3 and Android devices. The device uses a USB or Bluetooth connection to communicate with your console as well.

This QuadStick was actually dreamt up by Fred Davison, a nondisabled retired embedded electronics engineer who worked at Cisco. He has a mother who has ALS. As her condition progressed, his desire to create gadgets that could help her skyrocketed, which brought him to the notion of creating, or re-inventing, the QuadStick.

He is so dedicated to bringing this device to the masses in fact that he launched a Kickstarter campaign in early February hoping to raise $10,000 to create and sell upwards of 25 video game controllers. And within days, that goal was met — it’s currently at $14,000 and is slowly creeping upwards. The Kickstarter campaign ends March 6th.

If you’re interested in purchasing a QuadStick, once they become available for purchase they will cost $399 each. A definite chunk of change considering you already have to put down money for the console and games, but it’s worth it if you plan on playing video games a lot.